So every time we interact with you, even if it’s in a prayer group or some very intimate setting, we’re not 100 percent open. We can’t afford to be.
It’s not your fault, it’s not our fault, it’s just a bad system that doesn’t allow pastors to be as human as it should. You can’t fix that, but you can have understanding and compassion for the man or woman who loves and serves you week after week, who counsels you and hears your confessions, and yet often has nowhere to go to get the same healing and relief.
9. Ministry is a hard job.
Sometimes it’s said as a joke, sometimes it’s said in anger, that ministers don’t work very hard. That it’s a cushy gig.
If that were true, I doubt I’d know so many ministers who have quit, swearing never to return, including myself.
The best way I can think to explain why ministry is hard is to compare it to being the parent of a young child. From the outside, it might not look like a lot of ‘work,’ but from the inside, it’s the most exhausting thing you’ll ever do.
Because it’s not just about the amount of things you do, it’s the total emotional drain of it. It’s worrying all day every day about the people and programs you’re in charge of, being on call and not ever feeling really free to be away, feeling like you live in a fishbowl with hundreds of eyes watching you all the time and never really knowing what they are all thinking of you (unless they complain, which some of them do with regularity).
It’s caring for people to the point that you have nothing left for your own family when you get home, yet expecting that they show a certain spiritually-put-together face to the church (because the church expects that). It’s often feeling empty, yet pretending to feel full. It’s presenting yourself and your work to hundreds of people, several times a week, for evaluation, and often getting no feedback except ‘constructive’ criticism.
And after all of this, after years of this, it’s looking out at the people in your church and seeing little or no change. Ministry is very hard, albeit perhaps in a different way than your job is hard.
10. We are more sensitive than you probably think.
Most ministers I know have one or two people in their congregations who send them stinky emails weekly, and another 10 or 15 who can be counted on to complain about things about once a month.
Then, of course, there are a handful of the angels, who hug and love and say encouraging things every week.
But guess what. The people who complain are far more thorough and specific and persistent than those who encourage, and they are the voices that keep us up at night feeling bad about ourselves, wondering if we suck at this.
So take this one of your pastor’s secrets to heart: Most ministers have skin that is way thinner than their congregants think it is. We have to be open and sensitive to you, because it’s you we are charged with caring for. This means that the things you say to us can reach far deeper inside than they could otherwise.
